Just remember that if you give the new difficulty the best items then you're making it mandatory. There's no way around that.
It's something to keep in mind.
This is so true. It has to feel "just right".
Keep in mind, first...the idea of what the "best" items are will be changing with Loot 2.0...and Paragon 2.0 as well.
Currently, "best" refers simply to items with the highest stats, and the tightest bundle of the following: Crit Chance, Crit Damage, Main Stat, Attack Speed, Vitality, %Life, All Res...maybe Armor. With Loot 2.0, a legendary that drops that doesn't have one or more of those things can still be amazing based solely on the extra aspect(s) it has, that adjust a player's skills to work way better. And with Paragon 2.0, if an item drops that doesn't have one or more of the above mentioned stats, Paragon Points can be spec'ed in such a way to make up the difference. Meaning, in addition to making a wider range of items "good," there may even be a slightly higher demand for either class-specific rares with skill changing aspects, or general rares with skill changing aspects.
Thus, the "best" items for one person may not be the "best" items for another. Obviously, sure, some items will likely be incredible for most players' characters...but for the most part, Loot 2.0 and Paragon 2.0 not only seek to improve item and character quality, they'll allow players to place their own value on items, and not so much "everyone wants X, Y and Z."
That being said...you guys are correct, in a way. I was honestly just riffing off an idea on where to put different levels of items. Like I told Miles, specifics would definitely need to be worked out in that area. However, I understand the concept...wherever the most potent items are, that's where people want to go to farm and battle, in hopes of acquiring those great items. Then again, I think that can be slightly mitigated by exact difficulty, though.
If Torment were to be added to the very end (i.e., made harder than Inferno MP10), and maybe only a scant few special high end (perhaps BOA items) drop there, how "mandatory" can it really be if a vast majority of folks can't farm there? Mandatory means "farm here, and you can get the items that allow you to handle the entire game." Mandatory isn't, "this area is ridiculously too hard, and you can still handle the rest of the game even if you never go here."
Two words: Too Human. That game demonstrated quite well why a system that increases the difficulty based solely on your character's stats does not work.
Never played it. Heard it was supposed to be pretty awesome, but...didn't hear much more after that.
But yeah, like I said, I've played other games with that kind of mechanic. It's a nice idea on paper, as the challenge and difficulty constantly change with you...but there's never any time when you feel strong enough to CHOOSE to move on.
And that's what the devs say they want to add: more choice.
If they leave Normal, Nightmare, Hell and Inferno the way they are you have all the choices you had before. Now if they then include a difficulty that scales with the player's ability you have one more choice.
Players that dislike this mechanic can just play regular N-N-H-I. Players who on the other hand are not even challenged by Inferno anymore, can try Torment, where they are always facing a worthy foe. Players can start at level 1, but every fight would be challenge and bags of XP would be the reward. It could even be so that dying would result in a death penalty.
I know what you meant, MKIII...I wasn't trying to say the idea was bad or stupid. I was just saying that by making it scale with character power, like we said, ensures there's always challenge, BUT...that amount of challenge will pretty much always be the same, regardless of how powerful you get. There wouldn't be a time when you say, "sweet! I got this kick ass legendary, and finished this set...now look how powerful I am! Ha!" Conversely, there wouldn't be a feelng of, "sheeeeeeeit, these guys are badass! I need to gear up way hardere to take these guys on."
So I guess, to me, a mode/difficulty like that in D3 would basically be either TOO appealing at first, but boring kinda fast...or almost feel unconquerable. Ever play old school games on Atari? Where, no matter how far you got, it just get kept getting faster and faster? I feel like a mode like this would feel like that.
Meanwhile, removing the requirement to beat every difficulty means a player can amp up the challenge out of the gate...but adding an additional difficulty on the end means the highest level areas are extended further.
Tuning the game up to Hell with a Level 1 character and killing Risen on the Outlook Road? That's having control over difficulty. And like I said, too...with Paragon Points, new Level 1 characters are absolutely going to be stronger going forward. Sure, Miles was talking about brand new players. Okay, given...a brand new player won't have more than 1 or 2 characters at a time, so they won't have Paragon Points to boost the strength of their new characters after that.
But higher end players, who have been in this since launch, they're going to have a ton of Paragon Points to make a brand new character they create pretty badass. Normal MP10 might be way too easy for that character. Nightmare MP5 might be more their speed, though.
No disrespect intended, but if that were to happen (players earning massive levels by twinking lower level chars / inviting their OP mates and starting games on high difficulties), that'd be really, really stupid. I know you see that as a really good thing (going from your posts, which I've read), so we're not gonna agree, but I really dislike that.
As far as paragon points for new chars is concerned: I don't think pre-max-level chars should benefit from paragon points. That's my opinion.
Also, would 'your' Torment drop the same items as Inferno? Different ones? The same ones but more of them?
For starters, no disrespect taken.
Admittedly, I don't have any of the math or numbers for what early Act 1 monsters give out in terms of XP, whether on MP0 or any other MP. So I really don't know how much XP a brand new Level 1 character could get from killing the first zombie on the Outlook Road on Nightmare MP0 or higher. Thus, I don't know if they'd be getting "massive" levels by doing that necessarily. Faster XP, certainly, but I don't know how massive the level gains would be, nor do I know the extent to which it could be exploited for really rushed level gaining.
The way D3 is designed, with the freedom to switch skills and the huge stash for storing lots of alternate gear and sidegrades, most characters get tons of hours invested into them. "Rerolling" outside of Hardcore isn't all that common, so 1) even if a new player gets rushed, it's not a service that needs to be done a ton of times to deem it an "exploit"...2) with the ability to tune difficulty however a player wants, even if they're starting a new character and they want to get more out of it, if they're not doing it with another player helping them, they're earning it by themselves. I'd have a lot of respect for a player starting a level 1 character on Hell MP5 and getting far without touching the difficulty knob. That'd be pretty cool.
I'm fairly certain the way that Paragon 2.0 will work, new characters won't be able to contribute to the shared Paragon XP pool for the account, but they do have Paragon Points to spend. I could be wrong about that, and obviously they're still developing the system, so for all I know...they could intend for new characters to be able to use Paragon Points now, then when it goes live, they won't be able to. But I think that's how it works. You're welcome to your opinion, I'm sorry if you don't think it's a good idea. I think it's a great idea, but...like I may have said in this thread somewhere, if Paragon Points do make new Level 1 characters much stronger, there will likely be a need to increase the out-of-the-gate difficulty, or at least, the choice to raise it if a player would like to do so.
As for items...I was thinking of that in another thread...figure it shouldn't be too hard. Currently, Inferno drops (and I could be wrong) items between levels 58 and 63, right? So if Torment were to occur after Inferno, and if we add in the expansion levels, we could have items in Inferno drop level 58-65, and then in Torment, have 66-73?
Two words: Too Human. That game demonstrated quite well why a system that increases the difficulty based solely on your character's stats does not work.
Never played it. Heard it was supposed to be pretty awesome, but...didn't hear much more after that.
But yeah, like I said, I've played other games with that kind of mechanic. It's a nice idea on paper, as the challenge and difficulty constantly change with you...but there's never any time when you feel strong enough to CHOOSE to move on.
And that's what the devs say they want to add: more choice.
I think Torment is a totally different in that the difficulty scales with your character's power, i.e. dps * toughness. If you make paragon levels almost uncapped (max 9999) you can also make the difficulty (almost) uncapped. You can start Torment with any gear at any level and the difficulty will scale along with your increasing power.
This way you can go through all acts and reach max level or higher in one run through all acts.
This also solves the problem that characters with uber equip will have no challenge left.
It's much like the Mario Kart principle, where the competition will adapt to your skill.
Note: I like the original post and I really like the discussion. Very good thinking.
Thanks...that was really my goal, to get us all talking.
Well see, I'm not sure they could make a difficulty that scales to character power, or stats like Toughness or DPS. I think it'd have too much room for screwing up. Of course, on the opposite of that argument, if they were able to make that kind of a system perfect, you wouldn't really need Normal, Nightmare, Hell, or Inferno, as no matter how powerful you got, the monsters were always a few feet outside of your reach, and the game was constantly challenging. Which seems good, but I've played games like that, and while it kept battle engaging and dangerous...I never felt like I was making any ground in regard to character development, ya know? Like, I'd grind and grind and grind, I'd get better and better gear...but I'd never feel, even for a minute, like I was really totally kickass. The battles all felt pretty much as hard as each other no matter where I went, or what I fought. They all kinda followed the pacing, too.
That's why I figured my idea would be best. Five tiers of difficulty, each with Monster Power to fine-tune...or you could even have Torment be harder than Inferno MP10, and not allow Torment to have MP settings. But all in all, being able to control difficulty to that degree would be pretty fantastic. It would also make it so that each difficulty's areas were places players wanted to go, as opposed to requiring that time. There would be some pretty brave souls out there, trying to get far in Inferno MPs with Level 1 characters.
I could talk about this for pages, but let me just give you one example of what I mean: Final Fantasy 13. The FF series has a lot of traditions in it, but each game changes a lot of the mechanics, sometimes in a very extreme way. In the case of FF, the music has a huge impact on the game feel. The music changed a lot over the course of the series, but there are 3 particular pieces of music that are absolutely traditional: the opening prelude, the main theme, and the victory fanfare. These 3 pieces have been in every single game since the first. And FF13 removed all 3 of them. I still liked the game, but that REALLY put a bad taste in my mouth, and I'm not the only one.
So, I'm not opposed to the system you've come up with in principle, I just think the specifics need work. As for "Torment", I just hope they don't change the current naming convention. That would just be change for the sake of change.
I know how you feel about Final Fantasy, I've been a fan from around FF7, but I've played most of them retroactively.
I don't think every single game had all three of those musical pieces perfectly intact, though...for instance, I don't think FFX had the opening prelude, it had a variation of the victory fanfare, though...FFXII might've had one or two removed as well...but you're right, those three things are pretty iconic to Final Fantasy, and if at least one or two isn't in there, it'll feel "less" like Final Fantasy. I completely agree.
Then again, when people bring up stuff that they deem as traditionally "Diablo," 1) they usually mention D2...and not even D2 Classic, but D2 LOD, which came out a year later...2) they mention stuff, like you said, that affects gameplay directly and deserves a critical eye to be put on it, since so much time has passed. Even at D3's launch, I saw a lot of really small things that were improvements from D2...but since they were rather inconsequential, they didn't help the gameplay or character progression, so they weren't focused on as much. Now that a lot of aspects of the gameplay, skills, progression, itemization, etc., are all being worked on and worked out...the game may not feel as "Diablo" as it did, for some people...but I like what Diablo is becoming better than what it could've been, had it just leaned on tradition alone.
And thank you, yeah I do agree, the specifics would need to be worked out, most assuredly. I never once thought this idea was perfect from inception. Like I said, it was just an idea and I only proposed it because it seemed to solve more issues than simply removing a difficulty would. :-D
Going back to 3 difficulties just seems like nostalgia to me. Like, "D1 and D2 had 3, why shouldn't D3?" Because 3 is some kind of neat and tidy number or something. I'm not against it, but like my original post pointed out, I keep going back to what the devs have been saying.
Nostalgia and Tradition are powerful forces in game franchises. There is a thin line between making enough changes to some of the core elements of a game to make a sequel feel 'new', and changing too many things, or changing the wrong things, to the point that the sequel feels disconnected from the original. It is very subjective, and like I said, I will trust Blizzard's judgement on this, but in my opinion, the Normal/Nightmare/Hell progression is not something that should, or needs to, be changed.
Okay, well...
In all fairness...at this point, if you're worried about traditional systems going by the wayside, then maybe you'll want to play something else, if you aren't already. Skill Trees? Gone. 5 point stat allocation per level? Gone. Only 99 levels to acquire? Gone. Mana-potion spamming for near-infinite skill usage? Gone. These are things people considered "traditional" in D2, and are still being updated to be better.
Which is why I don't feel "tradition" needs to be held to so strongly. After all, "tradition" is something that gets wickedly misused and personally interpreted every day, by people who say, "well come on...that's just not 'Diablo.' Cooldowns aren't 'Diablo.'" In essence, many things that people think are tried-and-true traditions end up holding back progress. People say that all the time. "Shoulda just made D2HD." Right...they would've made D2HD, and people would've gotten bored at light speed...why? Because there would've been absolutely no progress from the predecessor. Just because certain traditions are leaned on and accepted as standard doesn't mean that ancient standard is the best and brightest way to go.
There are reasons why many of D3's features work better than D2. All of its features? No...at least, not currently. Hell, is my idea better? Not necessarily.
Like I said in my previous comment...this post is meant to ask a single question: would people really mind Blizzard adding an additional fifth difficulty, if the requirement to finish each previous one was removed? So far, people seem to be responding that three difficulties would be better than four.
I'm disagreeing, saying that really doesn't 1) solve the problem of repetition, or 2) give players more control, like the devs want to do. There's likely going to be some amount of change happening, though. That's the most likely part.
^^I'd be fine with that. But why not N/NM/H, then?
That exact question has really been on my mind too. If that were the case, why not just hack off Inferno and rebalance the three existing difficulties?
I think one of the reasons the devs went with four difficulties instead of three is the fairly large jump between Normal, Nightmare and Hell in D2. You'd make it through Normal and think you were pretty strong, despite the mobs getting really strong by Act 5...you'd take a few steps in Nightmare...monsters are running around with elemental resists, your skills aren't as potent as they were before, and suddenly your entire approach has to shift in order to compensate.
Thus, my guess is, adding a fourth difficulty means (currently) you're guaranteed to go through the game a bunch of times before Inferno...so that once you're there, the curve isn't quite as sharp. It's a little easier to tell what's coming.
As far as dropping the game back down to 3 difficulty levels...unless they not only rebalance the three new difficulties, but insert other challenges and problems for players to face (which I'm not opposed to), those three difficulty levels will still feel reasonably the same, and continuing to require players go through them all doesn't seem to solve the problem of giving players more control over the difficulty they choose to play on, ya know?
That's the main reason I suggested Torment occur at the end as a fifth difficulty, and removing the requirement to complete easier difficulties all the way through first...to basically ask the question...would people still have a problem with adding an additional difficulty tier, one that goes even higher than Inferno (which has been pretty well nerfed since launch) if it meant they didn't have to complete the game on every difficulty before getting there? Like I said, Loot 2.0 and Paragon 2.0 will likely make it much easier for new characters (created by high end players) to survive, so removing that requirement will make it easier for veteran players to level new toons.
And meanwhile, new players to the game, if they like, can crank up the difficulty to see what harsh realities they're up against.
It's all an idea...big chance they're not going this way, and I understand.
They removed nightmare.
Torment is the new name of the 2nd difficulty.
They also removed inferno.
With the addition of another act, they completely re-tooled the XP curve.
If you were to start at level 1, the experience would go like so; You start in normal mode, and play through the game. MP is still available to tweak how hard you want it to be. By the time you've beaten normal through act 5, you're ~ level 40. You start torment mode back in act 1, and play through the game one final time. When you beat torment, you should be level 70.
You no longer have to unlock all of hell mode by playing through the story. Hell mode is now what inferno mode was originally; A super hard mode, that you can still tweak with monster power.
What does this all solve?
You only play through the game twice to reach max level and get to farming.
When you're farming max level, you farm in hell mode with whatever MP you want.
Bam. 3 difficulties, you only have to play through 2, and you get a dial to tweak each one.
That's my guess =P
I don't know, personally, that sounds like a lot more work than is really needed.
First of all, I really don't think they've removed Inferno. It may not have played out exactly the way they wanted to, but they put a lot of work into fine-tuning Inferno to be both difficult AND rewarding AND accessible. So I don't think that's happening.
Second, if the end result of your idea is having to play through the game twice before getting to farming, how is that better than my idea of only going through it once to get to farm anywhere you want at any difficulty? It doesn't allow you to start at Diablo or Malthael on Torment MP10 and just beat the ending first with a Level 1 character, it just means if you're tenacious and slick enough in battle to handle way harder monsters than Normal MP10 with a Level 1 character, you should get a chance to.
Going back to 3 difficulties just seems like nostalgia to me. Like, "D1 and D2 had 3, why shouldn't D3?" Because 3 is some kind of neat and tidy number or something. I'm not against it, but like my original post pointed out, I keep going back to what the devs have been saying.
They want to give players more control over the difficulty of the game. You HAVE TO play through Normal...that's not having control over difficulty. You HAVE TO beat Normal before playing Nightmare, Hell or Inferno...that's not having control over difficulty either.
Tuning the game up to Hell with a Level 1 character and killing Risen on the Outlook Road? That's having control over difficulty. And like I said, too...with Paragon Points, new Level 1 characters are absolutely going to be stronger going forward. Sure, Miles was talking about brand new players. Okay, given...a brand new player won't have more than 1 or 2 characters at a time, so they won't have Paragon Points to boost the strength of their new characters after that.
But higher end players, who have been in this since launch, they're going to have a ton of Paragon Points to make a brand new character they create pretty badass. Normal MP10 might be way too easy for that character. Nightmare MP5 might be more their speed, though.
1) You're right 100%. People will be storming through Act 5 regardless, :-) But aside from reaching level 70 and collecting new gear, and doing some of the new endgame stuff like Loot Runs and Bounties, what else is there to do? Most of that extra stuff is going to be awesome, no doubt...but at the end of the day, those things are really just there to provide alternate streams of XP and items. It's all for the same ultimate purpose of strengthening characters and offering different challenges.
But you could make that argument no matter what they do. This is an expansion, not a new game. They can't stop people who are already super-powerful from stomping through the new content and they can't balance the new content around those people without setting everyone else way back. And no matter how much new content they add, it will never be enough.
Yes, you can stop them. Just implement caps. If nobody can go over 40% crit and 250% crit dmg, for example, then they have a "max OP-ness at RoS launch" to work with. Very simple.
There is this, yes. I'm not against these caps at all. The last batch of datamined patch changes apparently didn't have those caps included, but my theory is that they're being temporarily removed for testing purposes, to see what kinds of effects having them and not having them yield. Guess we'll see what happens to them.
But yeah, caps do create something of a soft ceiling that players will likely reach and not be able to go past with their gear (which I think those caps were, just on gear/item affixes, not on skills or Paragon Points). I mean, I understand the feeling people have, that they want the sky to be the limit as far as how powerful they get...but when characters are getting so powerful, it's game-breaking, I don't think caps should be out of the question.
Especially if it encourages 1) different/smarter/more creative playstyles and 2) quicker reflexes and better playing overall.
Let me ask you something, to try and narrow this down: why are you arguing specifically for a 5th difficulty? Is it because you feel that is necessary for your proposed change to the way difficulties work? Or is it because a "Torment" difficulty has been mentioned in datamined patch notes and we really have no idea what it means? Because it seems to me that those are 2 separate issues.
Honestly, here's my feeling, about as narrowed down as it goes...
I'm going along with "Torment" assuming, like many, that it means a new difficulty level. It may not. It might be an exclusive setting to a completely different section of the game being added later, that none of us know about. I'm merely combining a proposed change of a potential new difficulty level with the idea of removing the requirement to fully complete game playthroughs to unlock higher difficulties, into one singular idea that I feel would solve a lot of problems players have with the game.
Many think Torment is going to replace Nightmare, or Nightmare & Hell, and I'm mostly aiming this at them, with a counter idea that I haven't seen proposed by anyone, to hopefully inspire some debate, as I think messing with Nightmare and/or Hell is the wrong way for the devs to go.
With all due respect...the only solution I've seen you propose (at least in this thread) was a level requirement for a player or character to reach before moving on to the next difficulty. Which is nice in theory, but truthfully, it just seems like an arbitrary number to me.
Assuming 5 acts and 4 difficulties: N: 1-35, NM: 35-55, H: 55-70, I: 70. This is more or less how the leveling curve changed from D2 to LoD.
Before, you said that people get to around level 30ish on one playthrough of Normal, and I agreed, because that's about right. Probably a little less, maybe 25-27 or so. But by your model, I'd need to get my new character to level 35 before moving onto Nightmare? Seriously, it would take at least three times as long, mindlessly grinding to 35 on Normal (with diminishing returns on XP might I add), than it would just speeding through and struggling to squeak by Diablo at level 22, which I might be able to do now! That's why I picked level 20 as a more reasonable requirement, but even that...if all you need is level 20 to advance to Nightmare, again I'll ask...why bother requiring a particular level at all?
Here, practical example of that concept in action...have you ever played Champions of Norrath? That game had a level requirement to advance to the next difficulty level. But the level requirement was fairly low, and it should be. It basically said, "this is the literal MINIMUM you have to be in order to move on...you're allowed to move on to the next difficulty when your character hits X, but even if you're at the bare minimum, you're probably going to meet really serious adversity." Thus, if that's the case, why not allow players to try out harder difficulty levels? What's the point of the restriction? What's the worst that can happen if they try out harder difficulties? They die? Fail? Lose? Freeing that up encourages people to experiment, to see what they can make happen. it encourages players to try pushing themselves to the limits, and if it proves too much for them, they at least know what they're up against and can appropriately prepare. Much like RPGs that let you travel to lands with super powered monsters. You may die, but if you can somehow survive, you're going to be rewarded pretty heavily for your bravery.
Level 35 would actually put someone in a great spot going into Nightmare, likely too good, and that's not even taking into account Loot 2.0 probably guaranteeing this new character a bunch of legendaries on their trip. In addition, Paragon Points gained via Paragon 2.0 will also cause new characters' power levels to be thrust considerably forward, meaning Normal MP10 will be nothing short of a cakewalk.
So this isn't me just pining for a fifth difficulty level. It's me pining for people to get to the hardest content they can play on as fast as possible. They want to experience the story all the way through, they absolutely should. But once they beat Diablo once, they know what's going on, and more than likely, they want to zip around the game and explore, rather than have to go through the whole thing another 12-15 times.
My idea was trying to get people to a point where they can choose anywhere they want to go as fast as possible, and feel like the endgame has begun a lot sooner...your idea seems to hold that process up.
I don't mean to pick on you for one little aspect of your argument, but this is a key part of the restrictive problem the devs face...players are 1) bored at having to redo the entire game four times per new character in order to experience the full depth and breadth of endgame, 2) finding the existing difficulties fairly easy as they are, even when they crank up MP to 10...and will likely find them easier with better quality loot dropping earlier in the game when Loot 2.0 and Paragon Points go live.
Meanwhile, if a player uses a Witch Doctor, let's say, with enough effectiveness chipping away at mobs to safely handle Hell MP5 at only Level 12, then so be it. It means they're good enough to handle harder content, and they should have a chance at proving that. It's part of why the 3 difficulty system of yesteryear is so dated now, it gave players ZERO control over how hard or easy the game was, in addition to how much reward they got out of it.
To the second point, people who have been playing since release are going to storm through Act 5 regardless. But just finishing Act 5 is only the beginning. We still have to reach 70 and start collecting new gear, and who knows what else they have in store for us?
I think the easiest solution to that particular problem would be allowing players to move ahead to NM/Hell/Inferno once they have reached the right experience level, rather than needing to go through all the quests. Then they can change MP to whatever they want to level at their own pace and move through the game on their own terms.
Except that in D2, creating new characters was much more common, for various reasons. In D3, you have 10 character slots (soon 12) and that's really generous considering that 5 (6) is really all you need. The ability to rush through the game really shouldn't be an issue since people don't actually need to make new characters that often. Sure, you CAN create a new character if you want, just for fun, but in that case why would you want to get rushed?
For the reason I mentioned above, and also because monster levels are a major concern with how players progress, especially once the AH goes away and gearing is going to be a bit more difficult. MP is there to let them adjust the game according to their own preferences; I see no reason to completely reformat the way players get to max level when the focus really should be on what they do once they get there.
1) You're right 100%. People will be storming through Act 5 regardless, :-) But aside from reaching level 70 and collecting new gear, and doing some of the new endgame stuff like Loot Runs and Bounties, what else is there to do? Most of that extra stuff is going to be awesome, no doubt...but at the end of the day, those things are really just there to provide alternate streams of XP and items. It's all for the same ultimate purpose of strengthening characters and offering different challenges.
2) But see...in that case, if people get to move on when they hit certain XP milestones, it's basically the same as what I said, just with an arbitrary numeric determinant. Like, allowing players to move onto Nightmare quests (already completed in Normal, I assume) when they hit level 20, for instance. There's no guarantee they'll be able to handle Nightmare with a level 20 character, same as there's no guarantee they'll be able to handle Nightmare with a level 10 or a level 30 character, so if that's the case, what's the point of the level requirement? Especially since the "initial level cap" will only be 70 come the expansion. How do you divide 70 levels up among four difficulty tiers and require certain levels to ascend?
3) Again correct, creating characters in D2 was more common, for various reasons. Which is a great point. In D3, creating new characters isn't nearly as common, except for Hardcore players, so really...a player who is primarily Softcore, and has gotten five characters to Inferno, will not even see updated mid-range difficulty levels. A primarily Hardcore player might, as they may have to "reroll" new characters they've lost. But like I said, with Paragon 2.0 buffing new characters in big ways, they might take more care with their characters to protect them from death...but meanwhile, with a fifth difficulty tier, there's more danger and bigger rewards to lure them to die, and players who are already at the high end of endgame have further challenges to overcome.
4) Monster levels are indeed a major concern, you're very right about that. In fact, if I haven't said it yet, that's a major reason why I think adding a fifth difficulty tier is a better idea than changing two mid-range tiers. They change one or more mid-range difficulty tiers, they'll have to rework what those monster levels mean, which may bleed into affecting gear drops, gold acquisition, crafting, etc. Adding a fifth allows them to leave Nightmare and Hell as they are, but they can also add in additional hazards and abilities for Torment level mobs to throw at you specially. But the ability to change difficulties at a player's leisure means they can get a much bigger boost in difficulty than simply MP10 on Normal, if Normal MP10 isn't enough, or even Inferno MP10 if Inferno MP10 isn't enough.
So in this proposed system, would leveling from 1-60 in Normal MP0 even be viable? Or would you still come out around 30 after killing Diablo? In which case, what reference does a player have to how they should increase the difficulty in order to continue leveling?
Also, how do you handle the explicit purpose of inferno, which is to have an 'end-game' arena for players at the level cap? Remember that monster level is an issue separate from how much their damage/health etc is scaled. Whether it's 60/63/70/73, how do you handle the idea of having a mode (whatever you want to call it) where players can go anywhere in the game world they want and still have a consistent challenge?
Obviously, this idea and scenario isn't quite fleshed out, I'll admit, :-)
I guess I just don't see simply merging two of the mid-range difficulty settings as a great solution to solving the overall issue of repetition players are having. Merging Nightmare and Hell only shortens the repetition, and adds more work for Blizzard to rework what each monster level entails. Plus, if Inferno has become manageable by TODAY'S limited gear standards, Loot 2.0 and Paragon 2.0 will put people so far above the curve that even Act 5 creates, that Reaper of Souls could bowled over within a week.
Meanwhile, adding a fifth difficulty tier, and opening up the entire game for choice farming and grinding after the first playthrough, means a player can feel like they've reached "endgame" a lot faster, while still feeling like there's more to do with their character. Right now, people HAVE TO get a new character through Normal, Nightmare, and Hell to reach Inferno. This way, if their new character can handle Torment MP6 sooner than later, why should they be deprived of it?
After all, look at D2. People power-leveled each other and "rushed" each other all the time. Newly created characters were technically required to go through Normal, Nightmare and Hell, but power-leveling and rushing was an easy work around. The D3 devs seem to be effectively taking those D2 exploits into account with many of their updates for D3, and my idea here takes that into account as well.
Ultimately...if D2's design made it insanely easy for players to help drag each other to endgame within an hour, and D3's current design means it takes a solo player a week or more of hour after hour of speeding through content just to make it to endgame, why not split the difference somehow and give the players more control?
Maybe I'm just missing something here, but I don't see how this suggestion is fundamentally different from the current MP system. How is this any different from just letting MP scale up to 50 instead of just 10?
A valid point...
To me, it does seem like larger jumps. While it feels largely the same, conquering Normal MP10 is far different in intensity than Nightmare MP0-3. Monster Power is really just meant as an additional way to fine-tune the exact difficulty to how a player wants. In the past, the only way to tune difficulty was 3 settings...and if Nightmare was too easy and didn't offer enough XP or MF, and Hell was too hard, it left players in a serious quandary. Granted, there was that "Players 8" command (which is what inspired Monster Power in the first place), that supposedly changed the difficulty to make it feel like there were 8 players in the game, but I think that may only have been available on solo. If it was available in multiplayer games, I dare say not everyone used it. In D3, everyone uses Monster Power.
So in this scenario...if a character finds a great item that makes Normal MP8 or 9 too easy, they can restart the game at the same quest, but in Nightmare MP0. MP0 ends up being too easy still, they crank it up to MP5...whoa, too hard. They ratchet it down to MP3, and they hang out at Nightmare MP3 for a while. Currently, if they happen to find a sensational item that makes Normal difficulty too easy, they still have to slog through it all anyway to get to Nightmare, and even when they get to Nightmare, they still have Hell to get through as well.
So yes...it does seem like the obvious answer is "why not just make 50 difficulties," but this way may even accentuate the finer points of each formal difficulty setting, as they won't be on autopilot for as long. And like I said, if the "targeted legendaries" system being added in Loot 2.0 ensures various bosses guarantee legendary drops, it's up to a player if they want to speed past that...or go back later on to get those guaranteed drops.
TLDR: What if they add Torment as a fifth difficulty mode, after Inferno...but no longer require a player to go through each subsequent difficulty mode to unlock each one? In other words...you could choose ANY difficulty you wanted to play on, at any time, even starting from Level 1, but the difficulty of monsters (and reward for killing them) would be even greater than Inferno is now?
So, a big buzz has apparently surrounded the hint of a new potential difficulty setting, "Torment," that appeared in the latest batch of datamined changes/updates on the Blizzard only servers.
The general consensus seems to be as such:
1) Four "difficulties" (Normal, Nightmare, Hell, and Inferno) is too many to have to repeat the whole game through when starting a brand new character.
2) This being the case, most people seem to see the datamined removal of the load screen tip that beating Normal unlocks Nightmare as a prediction that Blizzard will be removing Nightmare, or perhaps merging Nightmare and Hell together. Thus, bringing the amount of "difficulties" back to three, like D1 and D2 had.
I've been all right with this consensus/idea since it came out. However, a blue post came out recently, mentioning a pre-Gamescom interview with Josh Mosquiera, in which he (and the blue post) reiterate the devs' desire to give players more CONTROL over the difficulty they want.
Merging Nightmare and Hell difficulty doesn't really help give players any more control over their game's difficulty, though. Nor does it remove the feeling of repetition, as starting a new character still requires you to get through the game three times, on Normal, "Torment" and Inferno. All merging two difficulty settings does is alleviate a bit of the repetition and require Blizzard to further tweak monster damage, health, etc. across the three newly designed difficulty settings to recompensate.
Furthermore, if many of you remember...during many pre-launch interviews, "Inferno" was intended to be the absolutely insane difficulty that no one could complete. They guaranteed death and frustration, and while many suffered that for a while, with the help of the AH, many got over it and were facerolling fairly easily. Also to consider...even with Reaper of Souls raising the level cap and adding Act 5 to the mix, folks who have used (or are currently using) the Auction Houses to jack up their characters' damage and output to crazy places, will steamroll all the new content in a few hours of getting it installed.
Again...merging Nightmare and Hell difficulty into one new one really doesn't solve this problem either. It only ensures that players starting new characters have different challenges, and really, that challenge just means gearing up smarter for an ever-so-slightly shorter trip to Inferno.
Thus...with additional higher end difficulty needed in the game (accentuated by the removal of the Auction Houses), and the four difficulty settings as they stand simply being too many to slog through IN ORDER...why not let Torment be a kind of "Inferno 2.0," and remove the requirement to unlock each difficulty by defeating the previous one?
An additional point to consider here is the other 2.0 updates: Loot 2.0 and Paragon 2.0, and how they'll play into the current progression of Normal to Inferno.
Paragon 2.0 will effectively raise the power levels of all characters on the account, even, if I recall correctly, brand spanking new ones. Thus, with enough built up Paragon Points, a brand new level 1 character, even without more than a couple skills unlocked, may be at a position to steamroll Normal MP10 with the most basic of gray quality items. Granted, a player did earn the right to steamroll...but if steamrolling content is boring, why REQUIRE a new character to steamroll content, just to get to endgame? If they can handle a harder overall difficulty...they should.
In addition, Loot 2.0 will be ensuring that even without the Auction House, low level characters starting from the beginning will have more opportunities to get really powerful and potent gear to take them well into endgame. Part of this update is a proposed "Targeted Legendaries" system, that may guarantee drops the first time you kill certain bosses. Not only would this mean it might benefit new characters to start at Normal, but if a player finishes a harder difficulty first, this system would give the player more reason to go backward to collect those guaranteed legendaries, provided the system works that way. All in all, though, Loot 2.0 will mean people will be gearing up in heavier ways much earlier, and as such, may pick up only one legendary that causes Normal to feel insanely too easy. This way, if MP10 on a particular difficulty isn't enough, they can amp up the difficulty in a much bigger way...any time they want.
Requiring a player to unlock each difficulty setting before they reach the next one is nice, especially in a game like Diablo 2 where the jump from one to the next was so harsh. But in Diablo 3, each difficulty (at least for now) comes down to monster damage, monster health, and elite affixes. So each playthrough feels largely the same, just with slightly stronger items, different crafting materials and gems dropping.
If a player wants to be brave and try their hand at starting a new Level 1 character on Torment MP10? Let's see what they can accomplish. After all, the devs seem to like the idea of rewarding players who brave insanely tough content with greater rewards. Maybe a Level 1 character killing one white mob on Torment MP10, with only Magic Missle or Poison Dart, grants enough XP to bump up five levels right away...but man, that first Risen on the Outlook Road is gonna be a doozy.
Like I said, it's just an idea. From what I've read of peoples' opinions on difficulty settings, the only commonality I see is that they don't like having to go through all difficulties so many times over. This way, a player would be able to choose the difficulty for themselves and not be required to play through each setting, but the game would still gets harder past Inferno, which a lot of people find pretty manageable.
Anybody? Thoughts?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Keep in mind, first...the idea of what the "best" items are will be changing with Loot 2.0...and Paragon 2.0 as well.
Currently, "best" refers simply to items with the highest stats, and the tightest bundle of the following: Crit Chance, Crit Damage, Main Stat, Attack Speed, Vitality, %Life, All Res...maybe Armor. With Loot 2.0, a legendary that drops that doesn't have one or more of those things can still be amazing based solely on the extra aspect(s) it has, that adjust a player's skills to work way better. And with Paragon 2.0, if an item drops that doesn't have one or more of the above mentioned stats, Paragon Points can be spec'ed in such a way to make up the difference. Meaning, in addition to making a wider range of items "good," there may even be a slightly higher demand for either class-specific rares with skill changing aspects, or general rares with skill changing aspects.
Thus, the "best" items for one person may not be the "best" items for another. Obviously, sure, some items will likely be incredible for most players' characters...but for the most part, Loot 2.0 and Paragon 2.0 not only seek to improve item and character quality, they'll allow players to place their own value on items, and not so much "everyone wants X, Y and Z."
That being said...you guys are correct, in a way. I was honestly just riffing off an idea on where to put different levels of items. Like I told Miles, specifics would definitely need to be worked out in that area. However, I understand the concept...wherever the most potent items are, that's where people want to go to farm and battle, in hopes of acquiring those great items. Then again, I think that can be slightly mitigated by exact difficulty, though.
If Torment were to be added to the very end (i.e., made harder than Inferno MP10), and maybe only a scant few special high end (perhaps BOA items) drop there, how "mandatory" can it really be if a vast majority of folks can't farm there? Mandatory means "farm here, and you can get the items that allow you to handle the entire game." Mandatory isn't, "this area is ridiculously too hard, and you can still handle the rest of the game even if you never go here."
I know what you meant, MKIII...I wasn't trying to say the idea was bad or stupid. I was just saying that by making it scale with character power, like we said, ensures there's always challenge, BUT...that amount of challenge will pretty much always be the same, regardless of how powerful you get. There wouldn't be a time when you say, "sweet! I got this kick ass legendary, and finished this set...now look how powerful I am! Ha!" Conversely, there wouldn't be a feelng of, "sheeeeeeeit, these guys are badass! I need to gear up way hardere to take these guys on."
So I guess, to me, a mode/difficulty like that in D3 would basically be either TOO appealing at first, but boring kinda fast...or almost feel unconquerable. Ever play old school games on Atari? Where, no matter how far you got, it just get kept getting faster and faster? I feel like a mode like this would feel like that.
Meanwhile, removing the requirement to beat every difficulty means a player can amp up the challenge out of the gate...but adding an additional difficulty on the end means the highest level areas are extended further.
For starters, no disrespect taken.
Admittedly, I don't have any of the math or numbers for what early Act 1 monsters give out in terms of XP, whether on MP0 or any other MP. So I really don't know how much XP a brand new Level 1 character could get from killing the first zombie on the Outlook Road on Nightmare MP0 or higher. Thus, I don't know if they'd be getting "massive" levels by doing that necessarily. Faster XP, certainly, but I don't know how massive the level gains would be, nor do I know the extent to which it could be exploited for really rushed level gaining.
The way D3 is designed, with the freedom to switch skills and the huge stash for storing lots of alternate gear and sidegrades, most characters get tons of hours invested into them. "Rerolling" outside of Hardcore isn't all that common, so 1) even if a new player gets rushed, it's not a service that needs to be done a ton of times to deem it an "exploit"...2) with the ability to tune difficulty however a player wants, even if they're starting a new character and they want to get more out of it, if they're not doing it with another player helping them, they're earning it by themselves. I'd have a lot of respect for a player starting a level 1 character on Hell MP5 and getting far without touching the difficulty knob. That'd be pretty cool.
I'm fairly certain the way that Paragon 2.0 will work, new characters won't be able to contribute to the shared Paragon XP pool for the account, but they do have Paragon Points to spend. I could be wrong about that, and obviously they're still developing the system, so for all I know...they could intend for new characters to be able to use Paragon Points now, then when it goes live, they won't be able to. But I think that's how it works. You're welcome to your opinion, I'm sorry if you don't think it's a good idea. I think it's a great idea, but...like I may have said in this thread somewhere, if Paragon Points do make new Level 1 characters much stronger, there will likely be a need to increase the out-of-the-gate difficulty, or at least, the choice to raise it if a player would like to do so.
As for items...I was thinking of that in another thread...figure it shouldn't be too hard. Currently, Inferno drops (and I could be wrong) items between levels 58 and 63, right? So if Torment were to occur after Inferno, and if we add in the expansion levels, we could have items in Inferno drop level 58-65, and then in Torment, have 66-73?
Never played it. Heard it was supposed to be pretty awesome, but...didn't hear much more after that.
But yeah, like I said, I've played other games with that kind of mechanic. It's a nice idea on paper, as the challenge and difficulty constantly change with you...but there's never any time when you feel strong enough to CHOOSE to move on.
And that's what the devs say they want to add: more choice.
Thanks...that was really my goal, to get us all talking.
Well see, I'm not sure they could make a difficulty that scales to character power, or stats like Toughness or DPS. I think it'd have too much room for screwing up. Of course, on the opposite of that argument, if they were able to make that kind of a system perfect, you wouldn't really need Normal, Nightmare, Hell, or Inferno, as no matter how powerful you got, the monsters were always a few feet outside of your reach, and the game was constantly challenging. Which seems good, but I've played games like that, and while it kept battle engaging and dangerous...I never felt like I was making any ground in regard to character development, ya know? Like, I'd grind and grind and grind, I'd get better and better gear...but I'd never feel, even for a minute, like I was really totally kickass. The battles all felt pretty much as hard as each other no matter where I went, or what I fought. They all kinda followed the pacing, too.
That's why I figured my idea would be best. Five tiers of difficulty, each with Monster Power to fine-tune...or you could even have Torment be harder than Inferno MP10, and not allow Torment to have MP settings. But all in all, being able to control difficulty to that degree would be pretty fantastic. It would also make it so that each difficulty's areas were places players wanted to go, as opposed to requiring that time. There would be some pretty brave souls out there, trying to get far in Inferno MPs with Level 1 characters.
I know how you feel about Final Fantasy, I've been a fan from around FF7, but I've played most of them retroactively.
I don't think every single game had all three of those musical pieces perfectly intact, though...for instance, I don't think FFX had the opening prelude, it had a variation of the victory fanfare, though...FFXII might've had one or two removed as well...but you're right, those three things are pretty iconic to Final Fantasy, and if at least one or two isn't in there, it'll feel "less" like Final Fantasy. I completely agree.
Then again, when people bring up stuff that they deem as traditionally "Diablo," 1) they usually mention D2...and not even D2 Classic, but D2 LOD, which came out a year later...2) they mention stuff, like you said, that affects gameplay directly and deserves a critical eye to be put on it, since so much time has passed. Even at D3's launch, I saw a lot of really small things that were improvements from D2...but since they were rather inconsequential, they didn't help the gameplay or character progression, so they weren't focused on as much. Now that a lot of aspects of the gameplay, skills, progression, itemization, etc., are all being worked on and worked out...the game may not feel as "Diablo" as it did, for some people...but I like what Diablo is becoming better than what it could've been, had it just leaned on tradition alone.
And thank you, yeah I do agree, the specifics would need to be worked out, most assuredly. I never once thought this idea was perfect from inception. Like I said, it was just an idea and I only proposed it because it seemed to solve more issues than simply removing a difficulty would. :-D
Okay, well...
In all fairness...at this point, if you're worried about traditional systems going by the wayside, then maybe you'll want to play something else, if you aren't already. Skill Trees? Gone. 5 point stat allocation per level? Gone. Only 99 levels to acquire? Gone. Mana-potion spamming for near-infinite skill usage? Gone. These are things people considered "traditional" in D2, and are still being updated to be better.
Which is why I don't feel "tradition" needs to be held to so strongly. After all, "tradition" is something that gets wickedly misused and personally interpreted every day, by people who say, "well come on...that's just not 'Diablo.' Cooldowns aren't 'Diablo.'" In essence, many things that people think are tried-and-true traditions end up holding back progress. People say that all the time. "Shoulda just made D2HD." Right...they would've made D2HD, and people would've gotten bored at light speed...why? Because there would've been absolutely no progress from the predecessor. Just because certain traditions are leaned on and accepted as standard doesn't mean that ancient standard is the best and brightest way to go.
There are reasons why many of D3's features work better than D2. All of its features? No...at least, not currently. Hell, is my idea better? Not necessarily.
Like I said in my previous comment...this post is meant to ask a single question: would people really mind Blizzard adding an additional fifth difficulty, if the requirement to finish each previous one was removed? So far, people seem to be responding that three difficulties would be better than four.
I'm disagreeing, saying that really doesn't 1) solve the problem of repetition, or 2) give players more control, like the devs want to do. There's likely going to be some amount of change happening, though. That's the most likely part.
I think one of the reasons the devs went with four difficulties instead of three is the fairly large jump between Normal, Nightmare and Hell in D2. You'd make it through Normal and think you were pretty strong, despite the mobs getting really strong by Act 5...you'd take a few steps in Nightmare...monsters are running around with elemental resists, your skills aren't as potent as they were before, and suddenly your entire approach has to shift in order to compensate.
Thus, my guess is, adding a fourth difficulty means (currently) you're guaranteed to go through the game a bunch of times before Inferno...so that once you're there, the curve isn't quite as sharp. It's a little easier to tell what's coming.
As far as dropping the game back down to 3 difficulty levels...unless they not only rebalance the three new difficulties, but insert other challenges and problems for players to face (which I'm not opposed to), those three difficulty levels will still feel reasonably the same, and continuing to require players go through them all doesn't seem to solve the problem of giving players more control over the difficulty they choose to play on, ya know?
That's the main reason I suggested Torment occur at the end as a fifth difficulty, and removing the requirement to complete easier difficulties all the way through first...to basically ask the question...would people still have a problem with adding an additional difficulty tier, one that goes even higher than Inferno (which has been pretty well nerfed since launch) if it meant they didn't have to complete the game on every difficulty before getting there? Like I said, Loot 2.0 and Paragon 2.0 will likely make it much easier for new characters (created by high end players) to survive, so removing that requirement will make it easier for veteran players to level new toons.
And meanwhile, new players to the game, if they like, can crank up the difficulty to see what harsh realities they're up against.
It's all an idea...big chance they're not going this way, and I understand.
I don't know, personally, that sounds like a lot more work than is really needed.
First of all, I really don't think they've removed Inferno. It may not have played out exactly the way they wanted to, but they put a lot of work into fine-tuning Inferno to be both difficult AND rewarding AND accessible. So I don't think that's happening.
Second, if the end result of your idea is having to play through the game twice before getting to farming, how is that better than my idea of only going through it once to get to farm anywhere you want at any difficulty? It doesn't allow you to start at Diablo or Malthael on Torment MP10 and just beat the ending first with a Level 1 character, it just means if you're tenacious and slick enough in battle to handle way harder monsters than Normal MP10 with a Level 1 character, you should get a chance to.
Going back to 3 difficulties just seems like nostalgia to me. Like, "D1 and D2 had 3, why shouldn't D3?" Because 3 is some kind of neat and tidy number or something. I'm not against it, but like my original post pointed out, I keep going back to what the devs have been saying.
They want to give players more control over the difficulty of the game. You HAVE TO play through Normal...that's not having control over difficulty. You HAVE TO beat Normal before playing Nightmare, Hell or Inferno...that's not having control over difficulty either.
Tuning the game up to Hell with a Level 1 character and killing Risen on the Outlook Road? That's having control over difficulty. And like I said, too...with Paragon Points, new Level 1 characters are absolutely going to be stronger going forward. Sure, Miles was talking about brand new players. Okay, given...a brand new player won't have more than 1 or 2 characters at a time, so they won't have Paragon Points to boost the strength of their new characters after that.
But higher end players, who have been in this since launch, they're going to have a ton of Paragon Points to make a brand new character they create pretty badass. Normal MP10 might be way too easy for that character. Nightmare MP5 might be more their speed, though.
There is this, yes. I'm not against these caps at all. The last batch of datamined patch changes apparently didn't have those caps included, but my theory is that they're being temporarily removed for testing purposes, to see what kinds of effects having them and not having them yield. Guess we'll see what happens to them.
But yeah, caps do create something of a soft ceiling that players will likely reach and not be able to go past with their gear (which I think those caps were, just on gear/item affixes, not on skills or Paragon Points). I mean, I understand the feeling people have, that they want the sky to be the limit as far as how powerful they get...but when characters are getting so powerful, it's game-breaking, I don't think caps should be out of the question.
Especially if it encourages 1) different/smarter/more creative playstyles and 2) quicker reflexes and better playing overall.
Honestly, here's my feeling, about as narrowed down as it goes...
I'm going along with "Torment" assuming, like many, that it means a new difficulty level. It may not. It might be an exclusive setting to a completely different section of the game being added later, that none of us know about. I'm merely combining a proposed change of a potential new difficulty level with the idea of removing the requirement to fully complete game playthroughs to unlock higher difficulties, into one singular idea that I feel would solve a lot of problems players have with the game.
Many think Torment is going to replace Nightmare, or Nightmare & Hell, and I'm mostly aiming this at them, with a counter idea that I haven't seen proposed by anyone, to hopefully inspire some debate, as I think messing with Nightmare and/or Hell is the wrong way for the devs to go.
With all due respect...the only solution I've seen you propose (at least in this thread) was a level requirement for a player or character to reach before moving on to the next difficulty. Which is nice in theory, but truthfully, it just seems like an arbitrary number to me.
Before, you said that people get to around level 30ish on one playthrough of Normal, and I agreed, because that's about right. Probably a little less, maybe 25-27 or so. But by your model, I'd need to get my new character to level 35 before moving onto Nightmare? Seriously, it would take at least three times as long, mindlessly grinding to 35 on Normal (with diminishing returns on XP might I add), than it would just speeding through and struggling to squeak by Diablo at level 22, which I might be able to do now! That's why I picked level 20 as a more reasonable requirement, but even that...if all you need is level 20 to advance to Nightmare, again I'll ask...why bother requiring a particular level at all?
Here, practical example of that concept in action...have you ever played Champions of Norrath? That game had a level requirement to advance to the next difficulty level. But the level requirement was fairly low, and it should be. It basically said, "this is the literal MINIMUM you have to be in order to move on...you're allowed to move on to the next difficulty when your character hits X, but even if you're at the bare minimum, you're probably going to meet really serious adversity." Thus, if that's the case, why not allow players to try out harder difficulty levels? What's the point of the restriction? What's the worst that can happen if they try out harder difficulties? They die? Fail? Lose? Freeing that up encourages people to experiment, to see what they can make happen. it encourages players to try pushing themselves to the limits, and if it proves too much for them, they at least know what they're up against and can appropriately prepare. Much like RPGs that let you travel to lands with super powered monsters. You may die, but if you can somehow survive, you're going to be rewarded pretty heavily for your bravery.
Level 35 would actually put someone in a great spot going into Nightmare, likely too good, and that's not even taking into account Loot 2.0 probably guaranteeing this new character a bunch of legendaries on their trip. In addition, Paragon Points gained via Paragon 2.0 will also cause new characters' power levels to be thrust considerably forward, meaning Normal MP10 will be nothing short of a cakewalk.
So this isn't me just pining for a fifth difficulty level. It's me pining for people to get to the hardest content they can play on as fast as possible. They want to experience the story all the way through, they absolutely should. But once they beat Diablo once, they know what's going on, and more than likely, they want to zip around the game and explore, rather than have to go through the whole thing another 12-15 times.
My idea was trying to get people to a point where they can choose anywhere they want to go as fast as possible, and feel like the endgame has begun a lot sooner...your idea seems to hold that process up.
I don't mean to pick on you for one little aspect of your argument, but this is a key part of the restrictive problem the devs face...players are 1) bored at having to redo the entire game four times per new character in order to experience the full depth and breadth of endgame, 2) finding the existing difficulties fairly easy as they are, even when they crank up MP to 10...and will likely find them easier with better quality loot dropping earlier in the game when Loot 2.0 and Paragon Points go live.
Meanwhile, if a player uses a Witch Doctor, let's say, with enough effectiveness chipping away at mobs to safely handle Hell MP5 at only Level 12, then so be it. It means they're good enough to handle harder content, and they should have a chance at proving that. It's part of why the 3 difficulty system of yesteryear is so dated now, it gave players ZERO control over how hard or easy the game was, in addition to how much reward they got out of it.
1) You're right 100%. People will be storming through Act 5 regardless, :-) But aside from reaching level 70 and collecting new gear, and doing some of the new endgame stuff like Loot Runs and Bounties, what else is there to do? Most of that extra stuff is going to be awesome, no doubt...but at the end of the day, those things are really just there to provide alternate streams of XP and items. It's all for the same ultimate purpose of strengthening characters and offering different challenges.
2) But see...in that case, if people get to move on when they hit certain XP milestones, it's basically the same as what I said, just with an arbitrary numeric determinant. Like, allowing players to move onto Nightmare quests (already completed in Normal, I assume) when they hit level 20, for instance. There's no guarantee they'll be able to handle Nightmare with a level 20 character, same as there's no guarantee they'll be able to handle Nightmare with a level 10 or a level 30 character, so if that's the case, what's the point of the level requirement? Especially since the "initial level cap" will only be 70 come the expansion. How do you divide 70 levels up among four difficulty tiers and require certain levels to ascend?
3) Again correct, creating characters in D2 was more common, for various reasons. Which is a great point. In D3, creating new characters isn't nearly as common, except for Hardcore players, so really...a player who is primarily Softcore, and has gotten five characters to Inferno, will not even see updated mid-range difficulty levels. A primarily Hardcore player might, as they may have to "reroll" new characters they've lost. But like I said, with Paragon 2.0 buffing new characters in big ways, they might take more care with their characters to protect them from death...but meanwhile, with a fifth difficulty tier, there's more danger and bigger rewards to lure them to die, and players who are already at the high end of endgame have further challenges to overcome.
4) Monster levels are indeed a major concern, you're very right about that. In fact, if I haven't said it yet, that's a major reason why I think adding a fifth difficulty tier is a better idea than changing two mid-range tiers. They change one or more mid-range difficulty tiers, they'll have to rework what those monster levels mean, which may bleed into affecting gear drops, gold acquisition, crafting, etc. Adding a fifth allows them to leave Nightmare and Hell as they are, but they can also add in additional hazards and abilities for Torment level mobs to throw at you specially. But the ability to change difficulties at a player's leisure means they can get a much bigger boost in difficulty than simply MP10 on Normal, if Normal MP10 isn't enough, or even Inferno MP10 if Inferno MP10 isn't enough.
Obviously, this idea and scenario isn't quite fleshed out, I'll admit, :-)
I guess I just don't see simply merging two of the mid-range difficulty settings as a great solution to solving the overall issue of repetition players are having. Merging Nightmare and Hell only shortens the repetition, and adds more work for Blizzard to rework what each monster level entails. Plus, if Inferno has become manageable by TODAY'S limited gear standards, Loot 2.0 and Paragon 2.0 will put people so far above the curve that even Act 5 creates, that Reaper of Souls could bowled over within a week.
Meanwhile, adding a fifth difficulty tier, and opening up the entire game for choice farming and grinding after the first playthrough, means a player can feel like they've reached "endgame" a lot faster, while still feeling like there's more to do with their character. Right now, people HAVE TO get a new character through Normal, Nightmare, and Hell to reach Inferno. This way, if their new character can handle Torment MP6 sooner than later, why should they be deprived of it?
After all, look at D2. People power-leveled each other and "rushed" each other all the time. Newly created characters were technically required to go through Normal, Nightmare and Hell, but power-leveling and rushing was an easy work around. The D3 devs seem to be effectively taking those D2 exploits into account with many of their updates for D3, and my idea here takes that into account as well.
Ultimately...if D2's design made it insanely easy for players to help drag each other to endgame within an hour, and D3's current design means it takes a solo player a week or more of hour after hour of speeding through content just to make it to endgame, why not split the difference somehow and give the players more control?
A valid point...
To me, it does seem like larger jumps. While it feels largely the same, conquering Normal MP10 is far different in intensity than Nightmare MP0-3. Monster Power is really just meant as an additional way to fine-tune the exact difficulty to how a player wants. In the past, the only way to tune difficulty was 3 settings...and if Nightmare was too easy and didn't offer enough XP or MF, and Hell was too hard, it left players in a serious quandary. Granted, there was that "Players 8" command (which is what inspired Monster Power in the first place), that supposedly changed the difficulty to make it feel like there were 8 players in the game, but I think that may only have been available on solo. If it was available in multiplayer games, I dare say not everyone used it. In D3, everyone uses Monster Power.
So in this scenario...if a character finds a great item that makes Normal MP8 or 9 too easy, they can restart the game at the same quest, but in Nightmare MP0. MP0 ends up being too easy still, they crank it up to MP5...whoa, too hard. They ratchet it down to MP3, and they hang out at Nightmare MP3 for a while. Currently, if they happen to find a sensational item that makes Normal difficulty too easy, they still have to slog through it all anyway to get to Nightmare, and even when they get to Nightmare, they still have Hell to get through as well.
So yes...it does seem like the obvious answer is "why not just make 50 difficulties," but this way may even accentuate the finer points of each formal difficulty setting, as they won't be on autopilot for as long. And like I said, if the "targeted legendaries" system being added in Loot 2.0 ensures various bosses guarantee legendary drops, it's up to a player if they want to speed past that...or go back later on to get those guaranteed drops.
So, a big buzz has apparently surrounded the hint of a new potential difficulty setting, "Torment," that appeared in the latest batch of datamined changes/updates on the Blizzard only servers.
The general consensus seems to be as such:
1) Four "difficulties" (Normal, Nightmare, Hell, and Inferno) is too many to have to repeat the whole game through when starting a brand new character.
2) This being the case, most people seem to see the datamined removal of the load screen tip that beating Normal unlocks Nightmare as a prediction that Blizzard will be removing Nightmare, or perhaps merging Nightmare and Hell together. Thus, bringing the amount of "difficulties" back to three, like D1 and D2 had.
I've been all right with this consensus/idea since it came out. However, a blue post came out recently, mentioning a pre-Gamescom interview with Josh Mosquiera, in which he (and the blue post) reiterate the devs' desire to give players more CONTROL over the difficulty they want.
Merging Nightmare and Hell difficulty doesn't really help give players any more control over their game's difficulty, though. Nor does it remove the feeling of repetition, as starting a new character still requires you to get through the game three times, on Normal, "Torment" and Inferno. All merging two difficulty settings does is alleviate a bit of the repetition and require Blizzard to further tweak monster damage, health, etc. across the three newly designed difficulty settings to recompensate.
Furthermore, if many of you remember...during many pre-launch interviews, "Inferno" was intended to be the absolutely insane difficulty that no one could complete. They guaranteed death and frustration, and while many suffered that for a while, with the help of the AH, many got over it and were facerolling fairly easily. Also to consider...even with Reaper of Souls raising the level cap and adding Act 5 to the mix, folks who have used (or are currently using) the Auction Houses to jack up their characters' damage and output to crazy places, will steamroll all the new content in a few hours of getting it installed.
Again...merging Nightmare and Hell difficulty into one new one really doesn't solve this problem either. It only ensures that players starting new characters have different challenges, and really, that challenge just means gearing up smarter for an ever-so-slightly shorter trip to Inferno.
Thus...with additional higher end difficulty needed in the game (accentuated by the removal of the Auction Houses), and the four difficulty settings as they stand simply being too many to slog through IN ORDER...why not let Torment be a kind of "Inferno 2.0," and remove the requirement to unlock each difficulty by defeating the previous one?
An additional point to consider here is the other 2.0 updates: Loot 2.0 and Paragon 2.0, and how they'll play into the current progression of Normal to Inferno.
Paragon 2.0 will effectively raise the power levels of all characters on the account, even, if I recall correctly, brand spanking new ones. Thus, with enough built up Paragon Points, a brand new level 1 character, even without more than a couple skills unlocked, may be at a position to steamroll Normal MP10 with the most basic of gray quality items. Granted, a player did earn the right to steamroll...but if steamrolling content is boring, why REQUIRE a new character to steamroll content, just to get to endgame? If they can handle a harder overall difficulty...they should.
In addition, Loot 2.0 will be ensuring that even without the Auction House, low level characters starting from the beginning will have more opportunities to get really powerful and potent gear to take them well into endgame. Part of this update is a proposed "Targeted Legendaries" system, that may guarantee drops the first time you kill certain bosses. Not only would this mean it might benefit new characters to start at Normal, but if a player finishes a harder difficulty first, this system would give the player more reason to go backward to collect those guaranteed legendaries, provided the system works that way. All in all, though, Loot 2.0 will mean people will be gearing up in heavier ways much earlier, and as such, may pick up only one legendary that causes Normal to feel insanely too easy. This way, if MP10 on a particular difficulty isn't enough, they can amp up the difficulty in a much bigger way...any time they want.
Requiring a player to unlock each difficulty setting before they reach the next one is nice, especially in a game like Diablo 2 where the jump from one to the next was so harsh. But in Diablo 3, each difficulty (at least for now) comes down to monster damage, monster health, and elite affixes. So each playthrough feels largely the same, just with slightly stronger items, different crafting materials and gems dropping.
If a player wants to be brave and try their hand at starting a new Level 1 character on Torment MP10? Let's see what they can accomplish. After all, the devs seem to like the idea of rewarding players who brave insanely tough content with greater rewards. Maybe a Level 1 character killing one white mob on Torment MP10, with only Magic Missle or Poison Dart, grants enough XP to bump up five levels right away...but man, that first Risen on the Outlook Road is gonna be a doozy.
Like I said, it's just an idea. From what I've read of peoples' opinions on difficulty settings, the only commonality I see is that they don't like having to go through all difficulties so many times over. This way, a player would be able to choose the difficulty for themselves and not be required to play through each setting, but the game would still gets harder past Inferno, which a lot of people find pretty manageable.
Anybody? Thoughts?